FW
The four-day Sourcing at Magic fair starts from August 16 at Las Vegas. The show will represent more than 1,000 apparel, accessories, footwear and home textile resources, along with a range of some 200 fabrics, based out of about 43 countries. During the event, seminar series will be held keeping in mind special features, needs and interests of that particular area. The second day of the event will see Apparel Magazine taking part in the ‘Sourcing Summit at Magic. A session on apparels with a theme of Sourcing’s Emerging Role-Achieving Breakthroughs From Concept to Delivery, will carry out an executive research summary from its 9th Annual Apparel and Kurt Salmon Sourcing Survey.
The event will see special emphasis on wearable technology, home sourcing and buzz boutique. Wearable technology comprises of prototype garments, stretchable electronics screen printed onto textiles and compression shirts with integrated dry electrodes for electrocardiogram monitoring. The concept of ‘Home sourcing at Magic’ is devised to integrate the fashion and home communities. It will see the participation of more than 50 countries. The model of ‘Buzz Boutique’ will stress on marketing solutions, apps and social media trends.
Global artisans will showcase their unique and culture-based products from the countries such as Philippines and Indonesia.
Benzene prices went up in February till April and after that, remained sluggish till June this year. Caprolactum, which had been following benzene values, lagging behind by only a month, continued doing so. Contract prices for benzene in the US plunged 21 per cent to $2.25 per gallon. The equivalent contracts in Europe also declined 14 per cent to €707 a ton. Spot prices, meanwhile moderated in early June, then jumped in the second week and fell again in the third week, finally bouncing in the last week across regions.
Asian markets remained strong
The Asian markets tracked firmer downstream styrene monomer and had active discussions. Asian marker, the FOB Korea gained 5 per cent in June, but was down but 40 per cent on the year. Prices had touched a 12-month low in January to just above US$600 a ton. Since then, it has recovered about US$200 a ton till June.
In Asia, caprolactam prices eased last month, which was driven by falling benzene prices and lusterless demand by the end of June, particularly from the textile filament sector. As demand was disappointing, several caprolactum units decided to shut for maintenance over the next two months this may balance out the weak demand. As for Europe, the May caprolactum contract was settled at an increase of
Demand for Nylon filament yarn dips
In late May, demand for nylon filament yarn began to dip, showing that the busy season was over earlier than expected and normal business cycles had emerged. Thus, prices dipped last month as the cost of raw material eased with lower caprolactum and nylon chips prices, and lack of demand. Downstream converters faced liquidity issues and limited fresh order intakes. As downstream sectors had entered the seasonal lull, nylon FDY markets swayed from stable to weak.
US too was struggling in the nylon filament segment, with slow demand and polyester as a substitute in some applications. The pressure from polyester was experienced by both markets.
Austrian company Andritz operating in over 250 places worldwide, provides full lines and individual solutions for spun lace, wet laid, needle punch, bonding and finishing for spun bond applications. In the spun lace, for direct or cross lapped lines, Andritz focuses on high performance with regard to productivity, fabric quality, process reliability, and energy consumption.
In needle punch sector, Andritz nonwovens products generate high value added. For both light and heavy fabrics, Andritz neXline needle punch optimizes the production rate of every individual machine along the line, providing higher tensile strength and greater evenness.
The in-house expertise of Andritz through-air dryer technologies and in developing high performance systems brings new process solutions to the spun lace industry.
Andritz is also a system supplier of complete wet laid nonwoven lines for innovative and versatile end uses in hygiene, medical, and technical product ranges. The Andritz wet lace process is suited for production of flushable, dispersible, and 100 per cent biodegradable wipes.
www.andritz.com/
The Tirupur knitwear cluster has been allotted Rs 15 crores for setting up a facility center for product innovation, testing and training. The common facility centre will be equipped with latest machinery to produce innovative knitted denim products, woolen fabrics with additional thermal properties and quilt fabrics. The testing equipment will ensure that the knitted fabrics produced are of high quality and can help producers of end products with greater value addition in the textile export market.
The training centre will impart skills to workers in a systematic manner for producing a workforce that can cope with the changing needs of the industry including product diversification at periodic intervals. Another set of people will be trained on maintenance of imported knitting machinery so as to reduce breakdown hours.
Tirupur township, 60 kilometers from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, is an important garment cluster. This township started with the production of low valued cotton hosiery items mainly undergarments during the 1920s and started with exports from 1974. There are around 700 active exporters and 1700 domestic garment suppliers at Tirupur. There are more than 2000 small units which specialize in knitting, compacting and calendaring, bleaching, dyeing and embroidery.
A centralised cotton buying system has been introduced by Zimbabwean cotton merchants to curb side marketing which has become rampant. Farmers have described the move as an attempt to promote monopolistic tendencies. They say the new cotton buying system has taken away competition. The Cotton Ginners’ Association, which represents the merchants, is buying the crop on behalf of all ginners, and the volumes are shared on a pro rata basis depending on level of investment in the production.
About 98 per cent of production is funded by ginners under contract schemes introduced at a time when farmers were failing to access finance due to lack of collateral. While cotton production has been on the rise over the past few years, the viability of the sector has been adversely affected by side marketing. The challenges arise from a situation where some merchants were deliberately paying higher prices to lure cotton growers including those holding the contracted crop.
There is a feeling the cotton industry needs to have a model to achieve better efficiencies, viability and sustainability. Liberalization of marketing will not work if regulatory enforcement is weak. Market forces are great for freely produced crop but not when all production is under contract.
The fashion designer now occupies a space between creative, technician and merchandiser, a framework and skill-set imposed by an increasingly competitive and demanding marketplace. The biggest pressure on designers, according to the Lectra/CFDA survey results, relates to speed to market: getting collections out quicker and quicker to continually renew the in-store offer.
Consumer expectations and shopping habits are also changing. In addition to shorter time to market and more collections, designers now have to deal with more competition. Brands need to differentiate themselves, while attempting to appeal to a consumer who is informed, empowered, less brand-loyal, mixing high and low pieces and not squeamish about shopping for the best price online.
According to the survey results, technical innovation means production techniques and the tools used for design and development that have become more advanced. Designers need to have a grasp of these latest advances. Designers and development teams need to share information in real time with external partners and suppliers. Even consumers, through social media, now have a platform to communicate with designers and express their top brand picks and preferences.
Manufacturers, marketers, merchandisers and even consumers have become inseparable parts of fashion design. New forms of communication via social media platforms, combined with a market where everything is available to everyone, have empowered a once passive consumer. As a consequence, designing has become more an interpretation of—rather than a suggestion of –consumer desires. The design-dedicated silo is being shattered and collaboration has become the new framework.
The forgotten 'blue gold', as it's termed, for the wealth it brought to dye-makers, was revived by an American in southwest France. This ancient blue dye that once brought riches to the region and was also praised in Chaucer’s poetry, and used by Napoleon for his army’s uniform is back in trend. Denise Simeon-Lambert said that they brought this ‘pastel’ as the tint was called in the region’s old Occitan-language, back in fashion. Acclaimed designers such as Dior and Chanel are wooing this ‘natural’ and ‘non-staining’ shade as well.
Simeon-Lambert is one of the two business owners that aim to restore international acclaim to this forgotten shade of blue. Today, they have customers from far as Asia as well. Simeon-Lambert stumbled upon this concoction, which is made from a plant and also has curative values, by accident though. The common name for the plant is ‘woad’, which carries the within the dye, which was quite popular during the Renaissance period. Simeon-Lambert revived an ancient tannery to revive the dye.
The dye lost to the more concentrated and easier to produce indigo from India, in the 17th century. This also was replaced in the last 50 years by synthetic tints. However, Simeon-Lambert, after discovering the history of the dye launched a company, which now produces 600 kg of the dye each year.
The US and Peru had signed a trade promotion agreement in 2009. It covers the garment, textile and agricultural export sectors. But Peru failed to enforce basic garment sector labor laws under the terms of free trade pact. The export law exempts employers from key parts of the general labor code by allowing them to hire virtually their entire workforce for an unlimited duration on a series of renewable, temporary contracts, some as short as 15 days.
Moreover, garment and textile employers have taken advantage of the law by systematically declining to renew the contracts of thousands of workers who joined unions in an effort to improve wages and working conditions. Major Peruvian companies in export sectors violate Peruvian labor laws with impunity, dismissing workers for union activity, employing workers on fraudulent contracts, and failing to pay legally mandated bonuses.
Even in cases where labor inspectors have found violations, fines are too low to deter employer misconduct and often go unpaid. A number of US and Peruvian human rights and union groups have filed a complaint with the US Department of Labor. These allege failure to adhere to labor provisions in the US-Peru trade promotion agreement. Peru happens to be a partner country involved in the 12-nation TPP negotiations.
It may take three or four years for the US and world markets to work themselves out of the surplus cotton stocks they face. The cotton industry has to reverse the trend towards greater use of manmade fibers. When prices start to rally, if they rally too soon, the United States becomes uncompetitive. The cotton that is being held in India all of a sudden becomes competitive and cheaper and takes away the market share of United States. Meanwhile, as prices weaken, China continues to roll out its reserve stocks.
When the market realises the US has extra bales to sell, it doesn’t help if growers and merchants hold cotton. Access of Chinese mills to competitively priced cotton has been strangled. As a result, they have turned to spinning polyester. The cotton blend in China has gone down from 53 per cent five years ago to 39 per cent currently. The result is China’s cotton use is down nine million bales.
Adding to the blend problem in China is the fact that Chinese companies produce more than 70 per cent of the world’s polyester, and its polyester staple fiber plants are only operating at about 63 per cent of capacity. So Chinese mills have a strong incentive to buy and run synthetic fibers instead of cotton.
A textile and garment show will be held in Colombia, July 28 to 30. The show takes place every July in Colombia and is one of Latin America’s largest fashion events where leading clothing companies take part. Business conferences, forums, seminars and exhibitions of Colombian and international designers’ fashions are held during this festival.
This is the 26th version of Colombia Moda and will see a large number of international buyers. The show has three main areas: commercial hub, academia axis and axis of knowledge. The commercial area will have over 600 exhibitors and over 11,000 national and international buyers. There will be a lot of buyers from Japan.
Projections regarding business expectations are higher than in previous years. In 2010 the fair had 3,600 sq. mt. of exhibition space. This year the space is 7,300 sq. mt. The junior category will have double the number of exhibitors. The designer category will have jewelers and designers. The 25th Colombia Moda had seen 670 brands, 6,300 buyers, 1,700 of them from other countries. More than 15,000 visitors also took part. Colombia Moda aims at integrating the textile and clothing production chain in one event of national and international stature.
colombiamoda.inexmoda.org.co/en/
